


Simple Pleasures

by caras_galadhon (Galadriel)



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-04-29
Updated: 2011-04-29
Packaged: 2017-11-03 07:58:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/379127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galadriel/pseuds/caras_galadhon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been a long, hard day for Sean, but home offers some simple pleasures.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Simple Pleasures

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://january-snow.livejournal.com/profile)[**january_snow**](http://january-snow.livejournal.com/) as an _extremely_ late Halloween treat I owe her for "knocking" on my [virtual!door](http://caras-galadhon.livejournal.com/390087.html). D'oh! ...I strongly suspect there is another part to this one, although this part can be read in isolation.

Sean yanked at his tie as he stepped over the threshold, the silk knot heavy against his throat. Most likely he was stretching it more than loosening it, but in his current state of mind, he found he just didn't give a fuck. The door thumped shut behind him, a fitting echo of his own foul mood. He kicked his shoes off, not bothering to check where they landed, and made a beeline down the hall towards the bedroom, nothing but a hot shower in his sights.

He barely registered the light on in the front room as he passed, but the soft voice that came from it was far more insistent. "Sean?"

He grunted something he hoped would do, but the voice followed him, even if its owner didn't. "Come here after, ok?"

Sean huffed and entered the bedroom, throwing his tie on the floor.

It was quick work to strip down, and even quicker to make his way into the en suite to turn on and step into the shower. The water stung his back like a rain of needles as he moved under the spray, the temperature turned up enough to make his skin prickle and pinken, a test of endurance as much as a salve to his battered enthusiasm. He waited, motionless, until the heat was almost unbearable, then turned it down, finally reaching for the bar of soap. He made quick work of lather and lave, his temper leaving no room for patience, scrubbing hard enough to make pink skin pinker. Only when the soap slipped from his fingers and clattered to the tile floor did Sean stop, giving in to the frustration that knotted in his muscles, leaning sideways to let his forehead rest against the stall wall.

Eventually, the water turned cool, and no coaxing of the faucet would so much as cajole the smallest spurt of warmth forward. Bowing to the inevitable, Sean abandoned the stall and grabbed a towel, rubbing himself dry even as he crossed back into the bedroom.

Admittedly, the shower had loosened him up, allowed some of the tension to bleed off of him, but even so, he could still feel a tightness at the corner of his eyes and across his forehead. It was hard not to give in to the urge to grumble, but that'd do no one any good, so instead he yanked on a pair of pajama bottoms, took a deep breath, tried to force his shoulders to relax, and stepped out into the hall.

Perhaps he'd been in the shower longer than he'd thought, because the quality of light coming through the windows seemed to have changed, sliding from the thick, golden glow of the end of the day to a gentle amber tinge around the edges of things. Sean frowned, glancing at the wall clock as he strode into the living room. _Great_. An hour under the spray, where he had been sure it had barely been twenty minutes.

"Any better?"

Sean blinked. He'd expected Viggo to have retreated to his studio by now, confident that Sean had returned home in one piece and bored with waiting for him to emerge. But there he was, settled on the couch, finger marking the page he'd just looked up from, smiling mildly at Sean.

Sean sighed, crossing the room to flop down on the cushion beside Viggo. He shrugged. The last thing he wanted to do was rehash the misery of script read-throughs with half the cast on speakerphone, the other half so unsure of their lines they couldn't parse what was on the page in front of them, and the sneaking suspicion that this film wasn't going to be any good at all.

"Ah." Viggo turned down the corner of the page and shut his book, setting it aside. "That good, hmm?" He opened his arms in invitation, a smile flitting across his lips as Sean took him up on his unspoken offer and slid downward, stretching out and settling his head in Viggo's lap.

Familiar fingers settled in Sean's hair and began to stroke. There was nothing to do but relax into the attention, no need to explain to Viggo the vagaries and pitfalls of the day, the frustrations and petty irritations that had him held fast in their grip. They might talk of them later, or they might not, but either way, Viggo's mere presence was all Sean wanted right now, and Viggo seemed happy to proffer it.

At first, early on, Sean had resisted quiet moments like these, just as he had so many others, for fear of showing weakness or some greater failing. Yet after the initial discomfort, he found he'd come to rely on them, and now, with Viggo's hand smoothing the lines from his forehead, he could feel the tension the shower had missed slowly slipping away. He didn't bother to fight it as his eyes slipped closed, warmth of another sort unknotting tightly-wound muscles. He sighed. Days like today were a misery, but in some ways they offered blessings when they ended in nights like tonight.


End file.
